Anthropic drops $7B MatX buyout, pivots to chip partnership
What's the deal? AnthropicDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → discussed acquiring AI chip startup MatXDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → for roughly $7 billion but abandoned the deal, shifting toward a partnership to develop custom hardware, two people briefed on the matter told Reuters. MatX, founded by former GoogleDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → tensor processing unit (TPU) engineers, is now seeking to raise fresh capital at a valuation of about $4 billion.
Why now? As Anthropic scales its Claude family of AI models, it wants hardware to match its appetite for data crunching and cut its reliance on NvidiaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Designing chips is slow and costly — a single generation can take over a year and run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
What's the endgame? Anthropic is building an in-house silicon team to design custom chips that let Claude run faster and cheaper. MatX has been developing a chip suited to training large AI models, which would give Anthropic design expertise and lower costs over time.
Building the bench: This week, Anthropic hired Google chip veteran Amir Salek for its hardware push. In June, it hired former OpenAIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → chip engineer Clive Chan, who worked on the OpenAI chip unveiled earlier in 2026.
The road to IPO: Anthropic is expected to list in 2026, chasing a $2 trillion valuation that hinges on 2028 revenue of as much as $200 billion. The offering is expected months after SpaceXDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → went public at a $1 trillion valuation.
What could go wrong? Reuters could not learn why the talks stalled. Anthropic declined to comment on the MatX discussions, and MatX did not respond to a request for comment.
The signal: Leading AI labs are racing to build custom silicon tailored to their models, chasing performance and cost advantages. Anthropic is keeping a multi-chip approach — committing $36 billion to Google's AI chips, $45 billion to rent cloud power from NscaleDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and $1.25 billion a month to SpaceX through May 2029 — while OpenAI touts its first custom chip, Jalapeno, as outperforming a comparable Nvidia processor.
Read more: straitstimes.com, Reuters
Image credit: RyanDonegan
